


A long road home

by tea_for_lupin



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Gen, Sacrifice, The Wild Magic, remembering, things that happen a long time later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_for_lupin/pseuds/tea_for_lupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane Drew and Will Stanton meet in the most unlikely place, many years after they last saw each other. Jane's past involvement with the Greenwitch has unexpected consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A long road home

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note about the setting: I holidayed in Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road (in Victoria, Australia) and found that the rocks and the beaches really made me think of the Cornish seaside settings of Cooper's books. All the places I describe in this fic are ones that I visited down there.

When she'd been younger, Jane had spent a long time chasing the numinous, looking for something that was mostly forgotten, or perhaps had never existed in the first place. She tried the drugs, of course; all her friends did them, but Jane didn't like the way they made her feel. Anyway, there was always the inevitable return to consciousness, the hazed awakening with the realisation that whatever she thought she had gained she had actually lost: time, magic, sense of self – when what she really wanted was to bring a piece of the otherworld into the everyday of her existence.

Her brothers didn't quite understand. Barney, of course, was able to make his own magic with paints and brushes and inks, and Simon was so – Simon, so sensible, so grounded, so certain of everything. Well, of course Jane couldn't expect him to really grasp what she meant when she said 'I just want something more, you know?'

So Jane had travelled a great deal for a few years, working odd jobs as she found them in places sacred and mundane. At times she thought she saw things: faces that seemed faintly familiar, a symbol barely visible through layers of paint or grime - but when she looked more closely there was nothing there…

Eventually, tired of being a nomad, she was resolved to return to England - but then, unexpectedly, she met a man and fell in love. Initially she anticipated the romance would last a few months, perhaps, and then she would continue home as she had planned. Somewhat to her surprise, romance turned into marriage and lasting love, and the months rolled over into years and then decades, and Jane found that Melbourne, Australia, had become her home instead.

Then Richard had died; a car accident, hit and run – no culprit caught, nothing to be done except grieve.

So now here she was, standing alone on the edge of the world watching waves crash over rocks that stretched out long hungry fingers into the ever-escaping sea.

It was cold; what passed for the frontline of winter down here. Jane wondered what it would be like when she was back in London, how much she would have to acclimatise. Of course it would be summer when first she got back… A ray of sunshine broke from behind clouds; though it held little warmth it lit the crests of the waves like beacons, and a glimmer of something else in the sand at the edge of the rocks caught Jane's eye. She stepped down carefully and picked up a small thin strip of yellow metal, crusted with wet sand. Rinsing it off in a rockpool, Jane wondered if it was actually gold – a charm, perhaps, broken off a bracelet or necklace. There was writing on one side.

 _Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea – That reminds me of something,_ Jane thought dazedly, _something…_ but even as she reached for the memory it was gone.

The wind was picking up and the sun had vanished again; time to go back to the villa where she was staying, maybe make a cup of tea, read a little before seeking out some dinner… It was still hard for her to do all these normal things without Richard there beside her. The dull thought crossed her mind, _I shall get used to it eventually…_

There was a man sitting on one of the rocks near the start of the reedy grass that bracketed the path leading up to the road; stocky, fair-haired, with round glasses on a cheerful round face, about Jane's own age. Jane smiled at him with automatic politeness as she was about to walk past. Nothing prepared her for the words he spoke.

'Hello, Jane Drew,' he said.

*

Will watched as puzzlement and then incredulous recognition filtered across the woman's face.

'Hello, Will Stanton,' she said, breaking into a smile. 'What on earth are you doing here?'

She ignored his offered hand and instead wrapped him in an impulsive hug; Will hugged her back fiercely and said, with a smile of his own, 'I'm on holiday, of course. Well, a sort-of holiday. I was at a conference in Melbourne and had a few days to spare… thought I'd come down here for a bit, you know.'

'Apollo Bay - of all the places-' Words failed Jane. 'And it's been how many years?'

'Hmm, about – forty? I think?' He paused. 'And you, what are you up to down here?'

'A sort-of holiday too, I suppose,' Jane said. 'My, um,' her voice cracked a little and she cleared her throat abruptly, 'my husband died a couple of months ago. I've been on some leave from work – I'm a teacher, English lit – and I'm just having a few days down here before I go – hm -' she cleared her throat again with a gesture of impatience, but Will could see the raw glint of tears in her eyes '—sorry Will – before I go back to town and finish packing everything up. I'm going back to England. Then maybe travelling for a while. I don't know yet.'

'I'm so sorry, Jane,' Will said with awkward sincerity, 'I didn't mean-'

She drew a deep breath and gave him a half-smile. 'Oh Will, no need to apologise – how could you possibly have known?'

Will shrugged and gave her a half-smile back. _I could have, if I'd tried_ , he thought; but he hadn't wanted them to be on such an unequal footing, not after so many years. It hadn't seemed fair.

He still wasn't exactly sure why he had been brought to this place more than half a world away from his home; he just knew that he needed to be here, at this time. The conference had provided a useful excuse for him to leave his teaching position at Oxford; just another of those things his life arranged for him when necessary. They happened much less often these days, compared with when he had been younger and fully caught up in the battle between the Light and the Dark, but he knew better than to ignore them.

He looked at the woman before him. He'd known it was Jane as soon as he caught sight of her standing on the rocks, of course, despite the many years that separated them. Her hair was short now, a close crop streaked with silver, and her figure was full, soft, not the gangling girl on the awkward emotional cusp of puberty that she had been when he'd last seen her; but she still had the same resolute set to her shoulders, the same gentle determination in her face.

'Well,' Jane said, after a minute. 'What about you, Will – married, kids?'

Will chuckled. 'No, not for me. My preferences don't generally allow for either of those things.'

'Oh. Oh!' Jane chuckled too as she realised what he meant. 'How about a boyfriend, then?'

Will wrinkled his nose wryly. 'Nah… there was someone, but it was a long time ago. Anyway, I'm married to my job, more or less.' Seeing her questioning glance, he elaborated, 'I'm a professor at Oxford, if you can believe it. Early medieval England with some Wales and Cornwall and Brittany thrown in. King Arthur, Merlin, all that sort of stuff. You know,' he added deliberately, watching her carefully, 'I talk quite a lot about the Trewissick Grail that you and Simon and Barney found.'

Jane's face was blank for a second. 'My goodness,' she said slowly. 'Do you know how long it is since I've thought about – I can't even remember how we came to find it, it was so long ago…'

'It was on holiday with your uncle, Merriman Lyon, wasn't it?' Will asked, studiedly casual.

'Yes… yes, I think you're right. Great Uncle Merry passed away a long time ago, though; I haven't thought about him for years either…' Jane shot Will a sudden sharp look. 'You do remember odd things, Will.'

'Well, Merriman Lyon is quite a legend in academic circles,' he said, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose and allowing himself an inward grin as he thought _and if only you knew how true that actually is._ 'Especially in my field.'

'I suppose so,' Jane conceded. The afternoon was really drawing to a close now, and with a shiver she thrust her hands deep into her coat pockets. 'Ow!' She pulled something small and bright from one of them. 'I forgot this was there. Stabbed myself.'

'What is it?' Will asked.

'I found it just before, near the rocks.' She passed the strip of hammered gold to him. 'Must have put it in my pocket without thinking. I don't know if I should keep it, though. It looks like it might be valuable, I'd better drop it off to the police station, I suppose.'

Will scarcely heard her; his heart had almost stopped beating as soon as he saw the lettering. _Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea._ With piercing clarity he remembered making it in his father's workshop, another one of those things that he had done without understanding why it was needed at the time…

'Will? Are you all right?'

'Hm? Yes… sorry, just thinking about something.' He pressed the golden strip back into her palm and closed her cold fingers around it. 'Keep it, Jane. I know it sounds strange, but I think it is meant for you.'

'It's funny,' Jane said absently as she pocketed it. 'It reminds me of something, but I just can't remember what.'

*

They met for breakfast the next morning at a café amongst the beachfront shops, and they talked for a long while, partly with the ease of strangers to whom it can be simpler to confide secrets, partly with the familiarity of old friends.

In the quiet warmth Will had pushed back the sleeves of the jumper he was wearing. As he reached for the sugar Jane caught sight of the burn on the underside of his arm; a circle, quartered by a cross.

'That's a nasty burn you've had,' she said in concern, stretching out one finger to touch it.

'Yes, it was,' Will said. His first instinct was to roll the sleeve down and cover up the sign of fire that had been burned into him when he was new in his power, tested by the Dark and almost broken; but he hesitated, and instead offered his usual explanation: 'Metalworking accident…'

But Jane was staring at the mark, not listening. With an effort, as if struggling to remember something, she said, 'Will… I've seen this before…'

'Well, of course,' he replied with a casual shrug. 'It happened when I was about eleven years old – you would have seen it when we were all on the beach in Cornwall.'

'No-' Jane shook her head. 'That's not what I meant. I've seen this sign, in so many places when I was travelling, or I thought I saw it but when I looked closer there wasn't anything there, it was just a trick of the light or something. But it seemed so familiar, always… and now you've got it too…'

For a few moments they sat in silence; Jane's eyes were unfocussed as she strained to trace the paths of a memory long untrodden and more than half-buried. 'And this,' she said, pulling the golden strip from her pocket and placing it on the table between herself and Will, 'this means something too, the same something, they're connected. Oh, why can't I remember?' Her face creased in frustration.

Will hesitated a few moments longer, debating with himself what to do. _But,_ he reasoned silently, _Jane must be right, this must mean something, because the Wild Magic does not just return gifts that are freely given to it… perhaps, at long last, she is meant to really remember, and perhaps something more…_

'Do you have a pocket mirror?' he asked. Jane stared at him as if he had gone insane. 'I'm not crazy, I just want to show you something.'

She shook her head. 'No, I never carry one…'

'That's okay. I'll use this instead.' Checking quickly to make sure that none of the few remaining people in the café were watching, Will filled his water glass to the brim and held his hand over it, murmuring some words under his breath. Jane was still staring at him. 'Here.' Will took away his hand. 'Can you see anything?'

And upon the surface of the water, unrolling before Jane like a silent film, tiny figures appeared and moved; herself and her brothers as children, and there too were a young Will, and Merriman, and a boy with white hair, each holding something that blazed in their hands, which were raised against a storm of impossible madness. It seemed black horsemen were bearing down upon them as they stood around a great tree, and the white-haired boy was swinging a sword that also blazed, struggling to cut something small and bright that hung in the branches…

Jane gave a little hiccuping gasp as the last images shivered across and were gone. The look she gave Will was different now; comprehending yet tinged with fear. Then she said, as she had said once before many long years ago, 'You are not quite like the rest of us, are you, Will Stanton?'

'No,' Will said, settling his glasses into their proper position on the bridge of his nose. 'Not quite.' He signalled to the waitress for their bill. 'Let's go for a walk and talk about it.'

*

They trod slowly through the dry sand that gave only reluctantly under their feet. In the wet packed strip that ran across the edge where the waves had teased the shore there were footprints: twiglike marks of birds' toes, the occasional criss-cross of paw and foot, small spurts of sand thrown up in the wake of the run.

Jane listened in silence as Will spoke, eyes on the ground, hands curled in her pockets. The wind tried unsuccessfully to ruffle her hair, which was too short; it had more success with Will's floppy sandy fringe, which he pushed absentmindedly from his eyes as he talked, low and soft and long about the great rising of the Dark. How he himself was the last of the Old Ones to be born into the Circle, how he had sought and found six great Signs of the Light, Things of Power like the Grail that Jane and her brothers had found, along with a golden harp and a crystal sword wielded by a boy named Bran who was the son of Arthur, that great battle lord of the Light. How it had been the efforts of the three Drews, together with Will himself, Merriman, Bran and an unexpected companion named John Rowlands, which saw the silver cut from the tree at the right moment and the Dark banished out of Time, forever.

Time indeed seemed suspended as Will spoke and Jane listened. They walked to the gentle relentless swish and crash, swish and crash, of the waves on the shore. But beyond their notice a changing tide of men and women and children still ebbed and flowed about them, and the sun rose higher and burned through the clouds, and loosened the wind's chill fingers from them, and at last Will fell silent.

Jane could not help it; there were tears on her cheeks. Will put a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided her to sit on a nearby rock, plonking himself down at her feet. 'Sorry,' Jane mumbled.

Will gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. 'Hey now. Don't be. It was a lot to take in.'

Jane fumbled in her shoulder bag for a tissue and wiped her eyes. 'I suppose it was,' she conceded with a watery smile.

'You did better than most of my students,' Will told her solemnly. 'They'd have been pounding on the door to be let out halfway through a lecture like that – I didn't even have to lock you in. There, that's better,' he added as Jane laughed in spite of herself.

She shook her head. 'Oh Will – you reminded me so much of Great Uncle Merry just then.'

'Jane-' There was some concern in Will's face now. 'I can't… I can't promise that what I've told you will stay with you. You remember it now, but it might slip away again – I'm not sure exactly what's going on right now, you see. But I think I've done the right thing in telling you…'

'I hope I don't forget again… It's so strange, to think that I've been walking around with such a big chunk of my life missing and I hardly even knew it…' Jane gestured helplessly. 'And it was so – so important! The most important thing in the world and I couldn't remember it!'

'You didn't need to. Anyway, it's not the kind of thing you can go around casually throwing into conversations, is it…' Will grinned. 'Well, I certainly can't, at least.'

Jane had taken out the piece of beaten gold and was turning it over and over in her hands, feeling the smooth yet uneven surface, the indentations where the lettering was bitten into the metal. 'The Greenwitch… I remember giving this to her now, well, throwing it into the sea from those rocks. You gave it to me, instead of the bracelet or whatever it was I'd been going to use instead, and I couldn't understand how you had known to make it. Just a lucky guess, you said, or something like that…'

'And now here it is again. It does mean something, Jane, you're right about that… I just don't know what, yet.'

A sudden cold fear pooled in Jane's stomach. 'You don't think – you don't think the Dark is rising again?'

'No.' His reassurance was swift and certain. 'No, it's definitely not that kind of sign – there would be others, and anyway, it's just not possible. The Dark was cast out of Time by the power of the High Magic; there's no way for them to return. Now it's all just about the ordinary battles between goodness and wickedness, which are certainly bad enough… I wish I knew what I was supposed to do, though.' Lines creased his forehead and the corners of his eyes as he sat a few moments in thought. 'The Wild Magic just doesn't do things like this, you know… it's indifferent, it's free, it's, well, wild… and yet here it is, the gift you gave returned, in the most unlikely manner, and in the most unlikely place…'

*

The telling had reawakened an old ache in Will's chest that he thought he had mastered long ago. He had always, necessarily, kept private the near-bottomless sense of loss he had felt in returning to the fully ordinary world. Grief had bored through him nonetheless, slow and thorough, until at last after months had passed he was ready to know, with the clear understanding of an Old One that was both blessing and curse, that while the pain would stay with him all his days he would in the end be whole again. It was a promise and a surety, this knowing, and Will held to it as if it were a lighthouse on a distant shore of the world, his unfailing guide home.

Now as he and Jane sat together Will let the sadness wash over him like a wave and touch the ever-present wondering at the very back of his mind: _Is it time yet, is it time?..._

'Are you ok, Will?'

'Hm, yes, just remembering things… I miss him, you know. Merriman. And some of the others… I'll see them again sometime, of course, but it's been a long time waiting, that's all. Anyway. Better not dwell on that, I suppose.' He forced himself back to the present, taking a handful of sand and letting it spill through his fingers, watching as the wind caught the numberless grains and sent them flying and falling in all directions. 'It's so different here, isn't it?'

'You've never been here before, have you?' Jane asked.

'No, I've not travelled much, well, not outside the UK. And here, it feels – we Old Ones, we can sense things about a place, the old magics of them, the sacred places. It's like - like looking at veins of ore in a piece of rock, I guess. Back home they're all of silver, pale and gleaming, but this country is all red gold, and copper, even here right at the side of the ocean… you can tell this land has a heart of fire…'

Suddenly his dreamy expression changed and he sat up, alert , glancing around. 'Jane! Do you hear that?' But he could tell from her blank expression that she could not hear it, that haunting fleeting cascade of notes that he knew so well but could never recall to waking memory. Will closed his eyes to focus on it better; it was pulling him, calling, he knew he had to follow it –

'This way! Come on!' He jumped to his feet and pulled Jane up too. She brushed sand from her jeans and grabbed her shoulder bag.

'Where are we going?' There was a palpable nervousness in her voice.

'No idea,' he answered cheerfully. 'We'll find out when we get there, I suppose.'

*

The wind had fallen; aside from the muted crispness of the sand giving beneath their feet, everything seemed very quiet.

Jane was unable to help feeling afraid, much as she tried. _I'm with Will,_ she reminded herself, _I'm safe with Will, I always have been._ She glanced at him walking beside her, confident, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking so – ordinary, so very much like the kind of person you'd scarcely notice if you passed him on the street, and yet she could sense something growing in him with each step; it was like the gradual illumination cast by a slow-warming bulb, soft and hazy at first, then rapidly building and building to incandescence –

He turned his head to meet her anxious gaze and said, 'Honestly, there's nothing to fear, Jane,' and pushed his glasses up on his nose, that unthinking oh-so-human gesture; but there was a difference in his voice, a new resonance.

Will led them on, past the rocks where he and Jane had met the day before, under a bridge and through the damp muddy edges of a creek ,where soil and sand, earth and water mixed and eddied; cars passed overhead, their engines thrumming with anonymous resolve.

They came to a swathe of grass, a picnic table, a short jetty of wooden planks. Fish, small and silver, chased each other beneath the green-brown water. A rowboat, old-fashioned in style but seemingly new, with white paint and blue trim gleaming, bobbed at the jetty's side. Two oars rested inside it, and at the prow, in a flowing script of exquisite delicacy, its name was written.

Will traced the lettering with one finger. 'Pridwen,' he read softly. 'Yes. Of course.' He helped Jane into the boat and then clambered in himself with such enthusiastic lack of grace that Jane burst out laughing. And Will was laughing too, and there was no need to row or steer even though they set the oars in the locks; the small boat drifted down the creek of its own accord.

*

Will's sense as an Old One could not have told him more clearly that they were doing what they needed to do. The feeling of rightness, of purpose, rang through him more sharp and bright than it had for long years; it sounded him like a bell from top to toe, so that his head was filled with music and the world around him shimmered with incomparable clarity.

They rode in the little blue and white boat; the sound of bellbirds and kookaburras pealed and spun in the air above them.

'There are apple trees up there.' Jane pointed. 'I passed some the other day, growing by the side of the road, but there are some a bit lower down the slopes too, see?'

'So there are.'

'Nice apples, too, I picked some – you don't often see fruit trees growing wild, around here…' She trailed off.

The boat was drifting gently to the edge of the creek, now broadened almost to river-size, and the mountain stretched above them. It was clothed in the deep green of long grasses; tall straggly eucalypts and dark firs towered over the occasional spreading fruit tree, and here and there dandelions and nasturtiums shone fire-like amid the bracken and the few remaining native flowers. A medley of the wild and the familiar; it was like nothing Will had ever seen before.

'Apple trees,' he said thoughtfully. The world shone at the very idea of them. 'How perfect.'

They scrambled out and began to climb the slope. It was steep, and often they needed to use hands as well as feet, clutching at clumps of grass. Below them the sun caught the water as it tumbled and chattered over a heap of stones, glittering.

Will halted, panting a little, by the side of one particular apple tree. It was old, unkempt, its branches still leafy and heavy with red-green fruit; more apples littered the ground beneath and filled the air with a sweet scent. A bird flapped away from a branch as Will laid his hand gently against the grey trunk.

The music in his ears was now so strong it almost dizzied him. 'Take my hand,' he said to Jane; his voice sounded strange to him, as if it belonged to someone else. Seeing her hesitate he smiled as reassuringly as he could. 'Nothing to worry about now, I promise. Take my hand.'

She did, squeezing it tight. Will spoke the words he needed; they came to his lips as easily as if he had learned them only yesterday, or had been practicing them all his life. And the hillside shimmered as though it lay under a wave of heat; both Will and Jane shut their eyes against the bending force of it. When they opened them, the apple tree was still there, unchanged; and beyond it stood a pair of great dark carven doors, as familiar to Will as his own name.

*

The music faded away from his ears and with a heart almost bursting Will reached out and pushed the doors open. They swung slowly at his touch, but with ease and lightness, despite their great age.

Beyond, within, there was darkness.

'Will?' Jane's voice was full of questioning wonder.

'I know.' His own was a little shaky. 'Let's see who's waiting for us inside.'

As their eyes accustomed to the cool dimness, they saw that a vast hall stretched above them. The storied hangings, half-hidden in the shadows; the ring of tall, pillared candles; the great fireplace blazing – all was as Will remembered it. And the best of all was to see the tall dark figure, robed in midnight blue, standing by the fire's side: the white hair still untamed, the hawkish nose, the strong-etched face the same as always.

For a moment forgetting Jane who stood just a little behind, swept up in the tide of gladness that rushed through him, Will cried out, 'Merriman!'

The two caught each other in a fierce embrace. Will found himself fighting down tears; there could be no other expression of the relief and joy of this homecoming.

Merriman looked down at Will, holding him by the shoulders at arms' length, searching the younger man's face. 'You have changed, Old One,' he said, gravely.

Will was briefly at a loss for how to reply; then he caught the twitch of Merriman's mouth and gave instead a sudden shout of laughter. 'Well. I suppose I have. It's been a long time in the world, after all.' He grinned up at his tall mentor. 'You, though – just the same. I can't-' he gestured helplessly '— I can't tell you how good it is to be here.'

'We welcome you home, Will Stanton – last of the Old Ones, Sign-Seeker, Watchman; home by the long road to the Circle at last,' Merriman said, and his words rang in the space as if many voices from unseen throats spoke with him. When the last whispering echo had died away, he added, 'There are many who will be glad to see you.'

Will could no longer hold back his question. 'Gwion?'

A slow smile crossed Merriman's face. 'He waits for you, Old One, as he always has done.' His eyes, dark in their deep sockets, moved past Will towards the end of the hall. 'But there will be time for such meetings later. For now, I think you should bring Jane to warm herself at the fire. She is surely feeling the cold, and there are things to say, and perhaps little time in which to say them.'

'Oh, no – Jane, I'm so sorry-' Will spun around, horrified at himself. 'I got completely carried away – come down here, you must be freezing.' He drew her forward from where she had been standing, shivering a little indeed, silently and with amazement watching his reunion with Merriman. And then it was her turn to be wrapped in Merriman's arms, herself hugging the tall spare form tightly; when she stepped back, her eyes were wet.

'It's good to see you,' she said huskily, and then laughed a little self-consciously. 'Although I don't know what to even call you, now… I guess Great Uncle Merry isn't really the thing, is it…'

'Merry itself will do as well as always,' Merriman said, and he gave her shoulder a squeeze. 'And here is another who wishes to greet you both, and to speak to you.' He gestured to a tall chair at the other side of the fireplace, which Will had not noticed when they had first entered through the Doors; but he recognised it, and its occupant, and immediately bowed to one knee.

'Madam,' he said reverently, for sitting there was the Lady. And she too looked just as she had the last time he saw her: the ageless pale face, the clear blue eyes her most striking feature; a gentle smile now on her lips and the beautiful rose-coloured ring on her finger.

*

The sight of the Lady sitting in her chair startled Jane into speech before she could follow Will's respectful lead.

'It's you,' she said, then felt herself blushing at her clumsiness, but the Lady only bowed her head, still smiling gently, saying nothing yet. Jane's words tumbled on; memories of her searching younger self, looking always for the missing part of her being, flooded to the surface in a sudden rush. 'I thought you were a dream. I looked for you everywhere. But I couldn't remember – I didn't know what I was trying to find. I thought, sometimes, that I saw something, saw you somewhere… but they were only statues, in the end…'

'People have glimpsed me in many times and places,' the Lady said, softly, 'and some of their seeings are truer than others, and some seers have also the gift of bringing their vision to stone or wood or canvas, and thus of giving to others a vision of their own.' She rose, and took Jane's hands in her own, briefly; the skin was cool and papery, her grip was strong and full of life. 'And now here we both are,' and she turned to Will with a smile, adding, 'here we all are. For the first and last time, I think.' She released Jane's hands. 'Have you the token of the Wild Magic, Jane?'

Jane fumbled in her bag until she found the thin piece of lettered gold. 'I suppose this is what you mean?' She passed it to the Lady, who examined in carefully, then nodded.

'Then it is time.' The Lady looked to Merriman who extinguished, with a wave, the candles standing tall in their circle. His expression was carefully blank, Jane saw; she turned to Will with a puzzled look, but he merely shrugged, clearly as uncertain of what was about to happen as she was herself.

The only light now came from the fire; but then also from the golden strip that the Lady held in her hands, blazing between them to a white intensity impossible to look at directly. Looking away from the painful brilliance, Jane saw that the Doors had vanished; she felt with a twist of her stomach that the hall was floating like an enclosed island in an unknown sea, and even though there was no visible opening in any of its shadowed walls a wind was rising, growing in the room until Jane staggered, clutching at Will to stay upright. The Lady was lost behind the brightness; Merriman was a black shape still as a standing stone save that his cloak thrashed and snapped about him, but his deep voice rose above the howling wind.

'By the Greenwitch's token the Light calls the Wild Magic to this place.'

And as suddenly as it had begun the wind dropped away.

*

The thing that stood before them reminded Jane somewhat of the Greenwitch, but as if this were the being in mimicry of which the Greenwitch itself were made. It towered, huge, wound about with creeping vines like an impossibly ancient tree, its face a near-featureless mass of vegetation that stirred as if in a slight breeze, though no wind now blew in the hall. Its eyes were uncanny; they swirled with colour as if sunlight and cloud chased each other across the sky, lit with occasional sparks, lightning-like.

Jane realised her mouth was hanging open, and closed it. Groping without looking, she found Will's hand and gripped it hard.

The tree-thing had no clearly visible mouth, but it spoke. 'Tethys sends her greetings, Old Ones,' it said. The voice was not loud, but nonetheless Jane swayed under the initial force of it; it was like a storm wind in a hundred trees. Beside her, Will did not flinch.

The Lady inclined her head in acknowledgement and greeting. 'What business does the Wild Magic bring before the Light?'

The tree-thing raised a branch-like arm, and pointed splayed twig-fingers at Jane. 'The Wild Magic claims this woman,' it said.

'No!' Will clasped Jane's hand more tightly and stepped forward a pace as if to shield her.

Merriman said, his words fierce in a way Jane did not remember ever hearing before, 'She is aligned to the Light.'

'A tangent to your Circle only, Hawk,' the tree-thing answered, and the flames in the fireplace bucked and soared though there was still no breath of wind. 'And beyond the Circle, the Wild Magic.'

'And the High,' Will said; he sounded as fierce as Merriman.

'The High Magic will not deny our claim, Old One.'

Jane could no longer bear it. She broke away from Will. 'Stop it – just – stop it!' She spoke more loudly than she had intended, and she felt herself flush scarlet as four pairs of eyes turned to her. 'I am no one's to claim.' But in a sudden rush of uncertainty she held out her hands to the Lady. 'Am I?'

'No, Jane, you are not.' There was rebuke in the Lady's tone, and for an instant Jane's stomach flipped over, but then she realised the censure was not directed at her. Will looked faintly mutinous, but stepped back. Merriman's face remained impassive; only his eyes glittered.

Jane looked from face to face in some bewilderment. 'Please, what exactly is going on here?' But there was silence.

'It is a deep magic, Jane,' Merriman answered her at length, 'and a dark one - though not of the Dark, of course, because the Wild Magic is beyond both Light and Dark. A sacrifice, for renewal, in an age where the Wild Magic is weakened. And by virtue of your connection with the Greenwitch the Wild Magic has – chosen you.'

'But-' Jane struggled to process what she had heard; she felt disconnected from herself, lost in fog. Will's face was unhappy. Merriman's words rang in her ears: _A sacrifice._ She said, at last, unable to think of any more coherent question, 'But why now? I mean, the Greenwitch was so – well, so long ago.'

'For you, perhaps. But for the Wild Magic times move very differently, and, now as always, a soul is powerful.' The being shifted restlessly. Leaves whispered to each other. 'I tire of this talk, Old Ones. Do you accept our claim?'

The Lady, who had been sitting very still and silent for the last few minutes, looking, Jane thought, as if she were listening to something more than what was being said aloud, now leaned forward and said, 'Jane, the decision is not ours, but yours.'

'Mine?' Jane swallowed a sudden lump in her throat.

'Yes, Jane. True, the Light has brought you to this point, directly and indirectly, but we have no authority to make such a choice as this for you.'

'And if I choose… not to go to the Wild Magic?'

There was compassion in the Lady's voice and gaze. 'It is given me to see many things, Jane, but I do not see for you a way back to your own world through our Doors of Time, whatever your choice.'

'Okay.' Jane drew a trembly breath, and squared her shoulders with a small shake of her head. 'Could – could I just have a minute to think?'

She walked away from the small group, past Will with his fists clenched and face set, away from the fire and into the colder, darker part of the hall, pausing to stare almost unseeing at a tapestry showing a white-haired boy with tawny eyes like an owl's.

She hadn't expected this, whatever _this_ was. When she passed through the doors with Will she had thought maybe she was being given a chance to farewell him, perhaps even to glimpse wherever it was he was going. Then she would tumble out of this more-than-human world for good, her last link with it truly severed, and return to the everyday, lucky enough to have her lost memories of past adventures restored. Now that path was closed to her, it appeared. But why...? Her head spun; she felt thick, stupid. At least Richard had gone first; he would not be left behind to grieve for her. With a thump of her heart Jane realised that soon she would no longer have to grieve for him, either.

No, she had not expected any of this when she had seen Will sitting on the beach the day before, let alone all those years ago when she had felt the sad loneliness of the Greenwitch and wished, innocently, for it to be happy. If she had known, would she have chosen differently?

Jane didn't know. She turned and walked back, and looked intently up at the tree-thing.

'It will help you?' she asked. 'If I… sacrifice myself to you, or however this works, it will help?'

'Yes,' the tree-thing said, and lightning flickered in its eyes.

'Well…' Jane still felt as if she were floating apart from herself, but she was no longer lost. 'If there's no way back in any event…' She turned again to the Lady. 'What will happen to me? I mean-' her voice caught a little '-Simon and Barney – my brothers – they're expecting me… home.' She stopped abruptly.

'You will not just disappear, Jane,' the Lady replied, adding gently, 'and your family will have an explanation to comfort them, though not the true one.' She stood and, taking Jane's face between her strong cool hands, kissed her on both cheeks; there was a mingling of sadness and approval in her eyes. 'You do well, Jane,' she said.

Jane moved over to Merriman, looking up at the strong carved face. ''Bye, Gumerry,' she whispered with a half-smile, and his own face creased in warm response as he took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. 'Goodbye, Jane.'

Last of all, Will. They hugged each other tightly for a long moment. Will said, slightly muffled, 'Jane, I-'

'It's okay,' she answered, 'it's okay. Really.' She squeezed him one more time. 'I'm so happy to have seen you again, Will.'

'You too.' He took a deep breath, and they smiled at one another.

Then Jane set down the shoulder bag she had been unconsciously holding onto all this time, and stood before the being of the Wild Magic. She said simply, 'I'm ready.'

She saw it stretch out its arm, felt the brush of twigs and leaves, and then she was coming apart like a string made of light, each exquisite knot of nerves unravelling in a burst of brilliance, and then –

*

Will sank to his knees, staring at the spot where Jane and the tree-thing had stood. The candles sprang back into life; shadows danced. He pressed his fingers to his eyes until specks of light spun on his closed eyelids, opened his eyes and blinked. 'I don't believe it.'

'Do you not, Will?' Merriman was seated now on the edge of the hearth, elbows resting on his bony knees, dark cloak puddled around him. The Lady was gone.

Will looked bitterly at the floor in front of him. 'I told her she had nothing to fear. I brought her here, and now she's – ' He couldn't bring himself to say it.

'There is no blame to you, Old One,' Merriman said, and he sounded once more like the mentor Will had first known, the master chastising the pupil. 'You know the way of things, and how the Wild Magic works.'

Will sighed and sat back on his heels. 'I suppose so. But you didn't know, did you – what was going to happen?'

'I… suspected, when I saw Jane accompany you.' The older man's mouth twisted wryly. 'But I am still capable of being taken by surprise, it would seem.'

'Jane was… really special, wasn't she?' The phrase was inadequate; Will trusted, though, that Merriman knew what he meant.

'Yes, it would appear that she was. More than any of us ever knew.' Merriman was thoughtful now; his brows were pulled down in a slight frown.

Will opened his mouth to say something else but then changed his mind and shrugged instead, turning towards the fire. 'I thought,' he said, after a minute, 'that maybe she was – oh, bloody hell, I don't know what I thought.' He pushed his glasses up his nose, ran his hand through his sandy hair, and stood up.

Merriman rose also, shaking out his cloak. He placed a hand on the smaller man's shoulder and looked down at him with undisguised affection. 'And now, Will – are you ready?'

Despite himself Will felt an idiotic grin break out on his face. 'I'm ready,' he said.

The Doors had appeared again at the end of the hall. They swung open, slowly, before Merriman and Will, and faint in the air rang the delicate bell-like phrase of music, heart-catching, as the first and last of the Old Ones passed through.

FIN


End file.
